Everybody loves a good dinkus

Chances are, if you’ve ever read a book you’ve encountered a dinkus. A dinkus is that little divider that sits between two blocks of text, usually to break up a scene. The most basic form of this divider is three asterisks centred: ***. It started out as a triangular shape called an ‘asterism’⁂.

A dinkus now can be any form of image that divides the text. Though here at Australian eBook Publisher we use this term, it is not a hard and fast definition. Many people refer to the divider as a paragraph separator, break symbol, paragraph divider, thought break and many other terms.

In fiction, the main purpose of a dinkus is to provide the reader with a visual cue that the scene is changing. This could be a jump in time, location, or perspective.

The dinkus can be used in non-fiction, and might separate breaks in topic, section or chapter.

Dinkuses are not governed by solid rules. Their use is usually a decision made by the typesetter (Get your book typeset here). Some books don’t use a dinkus to break up text. They may just implement a larger paragraph break to allow some ‘breathing room’ between the two paragraphs. This indicates to the reader that something has changed.

Seen a good dinkus? Share a picture with us on Facebook with the hash tag #everybodylovesagooddinkus.